Nightshatter Page 4

  I sighed and watched him grab a chair from the lobby and head out the door. Clinic duty was one thing, but if Garrett came out with me on farm calls, I’d have to leave him in the truck.

  I took blood from the poodle for a pre-dental workup. It had just escorted its owner out the door when my phone sang Imagine Dragons’ “Demons,” singing about letting someone go.

  Despite the ominous words, my heart leaped. I picked up the text.

  How are you doing?

  I ripped off my examination gloves and tossed them in the bin before thumbing a reply. No fur, just latex.

  She took that reference in stride. You haven’t fed Garrett to the dogs yet?

  They want to eat him without any help from me.

  I once saw a bull moose attack him when we were hunting.

  Not likely they were hunting moose. I grinned at the thought of Garrett in wulfan form fending off the enormous animal. Who won?

  Well, Garrett still walks among us.

  I laughed out loud and typed as much.

  I’ll see you later.

  My smile faded. If I was to retain any control over the wulf, I needed to stay away from Sam. Not sure that’s a good idea.

  Her response came back fast.

  Not your call, soldier. Catch you later.

  I asked what she meant, but she was already gone. Or ignoring me.

  I became aware of Ardyth speaking to someone on the phone. Our elderly receptionist was always cheerful, but I detected a strained note in her voice that made me pause just inside the hall.

  Sure enough, she appeared a second later, her forehead creased in a frown.

  “Just got a call from a farm near Ladywood. The owner says she’s got a mare foaling that’s in trouble and her regular vet, Doc Elroy, is away at a family funeral.”

  Dr. Elroy ran his clinic solo and often used ours as backup since we had four full-time vets. Ardyth’s words brought every sense to full alert. Mares seldom experienced trouble foaling, but when they did, it was serious.

  “How long since the water broke?”

  “An hour. No sign of progress, no feet, nothing.”

  Darlene popped out of the nearest examination room, and her eyes met mine, questioning.

  “I’ve got it.” I looked at Ardyth. “Tell her to get the mare up and walking, if she can.” Hopefully, the baby would drop back into her and buy us some time.

  Darlene nodded and headed down the hall to surgery. “Let me know if you need help,” she called over her shoulder.

  Moments later, I was on the way, farm directions in hand. Garrett had found himself a spot in the sun when I collected him. I ran a rapid inventory of my kit in the back to ensure I had all options covered, and we left the parking lot in a cloud of dust, headed north.

  4

  My foot pressed the gas pedal. Every minute might mean the difference between life and death for that foal.

  “Do you have to go so fast?”

  “That baby won’t make it unless I get there, like, now. With some animals, you have a few hours’ safety net between the water breaking and the baby’s appearance, but not horses. Foals are jet-propelled into the world. Usually they’re on the ground twenty minutes after the water breaks. An hour means big trouble.” I glanced over at Garrett, who had a hand braced against the dash of my SUV. His face appeared unusually pale.

  “I didn’t think you guys were afraid of anything.”

  “We’re not.” His dark brows rested so low over his eyes that only a glint of blue showed. “I’m not. But you’re going thirty over the limit.”

  “Haven’t you ever done that?”

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “But that’s when I’m driving.”

  I laughed. Garrett wasn’t accustomed to being at the mercy of anyone. I handed him the directions to the farm. “Here, give yourself something to do. Navigate for me.”

  Reluctantly, he peeled his hand off the dash to peruse Ardyth’s loopy handwriting. He squinted at the mile marker sign at the next gravel road.

  “Another mile, then turn right.”

  I nodded. This was the same highway we took to Chris’s, only his place was farther out.

  “Here. Turn here.”

  I applied the brakes and spun the wheel in one fluid motion, and Garrett grabbed the dash with both hands.

  “She’s three and a half miles in. On the right.” He squinted at the paper clutched between his fingers without relinquishing his hold on the dash and read off the sequence of numbers that would appear on the property sign.

  My foot went down. We hit washboard on the gravel road and the SUV plowed bravely through it, the back end slewing around.

  “Christ,” muttered Garrett.

  I didn’t slow down until we hit the three-mile mark, then I scanned the small green property markers. It turned out I didn’t need them. The sign at the end of the drive read Rockspring Warmbloods.

  A chunky man in his forties waited for us outside the barn, his face tight with tension. I grabbed my gear, then looked at Garrett.

  “Stay here.”

  “What? No, I’m coming with you.”

  “How are you with horses?”

  Garrett glanced at the owner, who was no doubt wondering at our odd conversation.

  “Not bad,” the enforcer replied, but I saw the hesitation. Horses were sensitive to energy, and the last thing I needed was him adding tension to an already dire situation.

  “I’ll be in the barn. Stay here. If I need you, I’ll shout.”

  He looked as though he might protest but subsided when I ignored him and followed the puzzled owner through the door.

  The barn was a newer metal-lined post-frame structure with roomy, expensive prefab stalls that faced a center aisle. Curious equine faces watched us over open half doors. Something dark and small bounced briefly into view above the solid stall partition—a foal, no more than a week old, trying out his legs. They tended to do a lot of pogo sticking for the first while, until they figured things out.

  “We bred five last year. Two have already dropped their foals—we have a colt and a filly. Both were by Wanderer.” I identified pride in the owner’s voice.

  “Jumper or dressage lines?” I asked.

  “Jumpers, those. Luna’s is by Quip, he’s dressage.”

  Expensive horses. “You bred A.I.?” Artificial Insemination allowed mare owners to select stallions from all over the world, bringing valuable genetics to their home turf.

  “Yes. Bred six, got five pregnant.”

  I was impressed. A.I. could be tricky. Timing was critical and required coordination with the stallion owner, who often resided in another country. Or even continent.

  He directed me to their foaling stall, a large area at the end of the barn. Inside, a slim woman led a large bay mare around, murmuring to the horse as they moved. She looked up when I entered.

  “I’m Louise. This is Luna,” she said. “She’s a week early, which is unusual for her. This is her fourth baby for us and she’s most often late delivering.”

  “A week’s within normal range.” I frowned. “Any blood or unusual discharge?”

  “No. When her water broke, the fluid looked normal. Since then, she’s been up and down multiple times.”

  She kept her voice low and calm, but her face showed her tension. An experienced horse breeder, she knew something was amiss.

  The rising and lying down was nature’s way to realign the fetus for delivery, so that didn’t alarm me as much as the lack of progress. The husband brought in a bucket of water, and I used my surgical soap to quickly wash up before examining Luna. She was a giant of a horse, tall with big bones. Her pendulous belly and sweat-soaked sides didn’t detract from the overall impression of quality. But good breeding couldn’t help her now.

  I coated my hand and arm in lubricating jelly before moving to examine the birth canal. I’d just lifted her tail when a powerful ripple ran the length of her. Luna’s legs folded as she dropped. I hurried to get into po
sition, as the contraction tightened her entire body, stiffening her legs. She groaned and raised her tail.

  Nothing happened. No appearance of little hooves, no nose nestled between the front legs.

  Not good.

  Horses rarely experienced trouble with births for a few reasons. Perhaps most importantly, the mare dictated the size of the offspring, so no oversized babies, something that was a common problem in other livestock. Also, mares rarely carried an abnormal fetus to term.

  My mind raced through all possibilities as I kneeled near her tail. The moment the contraction eased, I slipped my hand inside—as always, marvelling at the heat, the pressure, and the curious elastic sensation of being within a living, breathing body. I felt the pulse of her heartbeat as I pushed deeper. She swallowed my arm up to my shoulder. The next contraction was strong enough to hurt, closing the walls of the birth canal around my arm. But it pushed something against my questing hand.

  A hoof. Not pointed down toward mom’s belly, but up, toward her back. My hand grabbed at it, then crawled up the leg to be sure. Hind foot, pointed the wrong way.

  Dammit. Most foals were born in a diving position, their heads lying neatly over their extended front legs.

  “It’s breech,” I said.

  Breech births usually resulted in a dead foal because the pelvic canal would pinch the umbilical cord, cutting off oxygen to the fetus. Louise’s face contorted—she knew. I would do my best, but the odds were against them.

  “The good news is the foal isn’t far into the birth canal. Walking Luna may have dropped it back into the uterus, so it may yet be alive.”

  When the contraction eased, the little foot tried to slide backward. I clutched it, extending my hand to search for the other hind foot, and found it. It was then that my fingers brushed something else, totally unexpected.

  I searched the contours. Another foot, a front foot. Leading to something else. Hot, wet, and slimy, and then a small mouth opened to encase my fingers right through the slippery mess—but how? My brain dredged up all kinds of horrible deformations that involved a head and one front foot ending up near back hooves, and I dismissed them when the more obvious conclusion popped into my head.

  Crap. Twins. In many animals, twins were no big deal, and even welcomed, but it was atrocious news for horses. They seldom carried twins to term because there wasn’t enough internal room or resources. If they managed it, one or both babies usually died during birth or, if those long legs didn’t totally tangle up the process, shortly thereafter.

  “Was she ultrasounded?” I asked.

  Louise’s eyes widened. “Yes. At day fifteen.”

  It was often mandatory with A.I. and written into the contract signed with the owner of the stallion. Most frozen or cooled semen was shipped with a live foal guarantee, so it was important to confirm the pregnancy as early as possible. That allowed for a rebreed at the next heat if the first didn’t take. If twins were detected at that point, one of the pregnancies was usually terminated to ensure the other would be carried to term.

  “He was having problems with his machine, but he confirmed the pregnancy.”

  Elroy was a good vet, but even good vets sometimes missed things, and if the machine was giving him trouble . . . “She’s carrying twins.”

  “Oh, no.” She breathed the words. “Can you deliver them?”

  If I couldn’t get them out, all three would die. I knew one of the foals was still alive, a miracle in itself. “We’ll get them out.” I sounded more confident than I felt. “I need the ropes.”

  She handed me the soft cotton lines. Between contractions, I used my free hand to push the ropes to the fingers now holding the hind legs just above the hooves. I looped them around the first joint of both hind legs. So much for the easy part. I could tell by the size of the hooves and legs that the foal was tiny. A big mare like Luna would have delivered it on her own if it weren’t for the twin attempting to come at the same time. I released the hind hooves and crept my hand to the little nose of the other baby. This one also felt small, but larger than the breech.

  Another contraction swept through Luna, and I gritted my teeth as the power of it pinched my arm between the babies and her muscular pelvic walls. I knew that I would have only moments to work before the next contraction. The one foal must be disentangled and pushed back into the uterus. But to reach far enough into the mare, I needed more length than my human arm could provide.

  Desperate, I called on my wulf to do what I’d promised Sam I wouldn’t. Within the horse, the muscles of my right arm stretched around lengthening bone. Luna snorted at the smell of the predator within me, but she was too far into labor to do anything more. Holding firm to the ropes with my left hand so the breech baby would not slide backward, I wrapped my right hand around the head of the larger fetus and pushed gently. The curve of the jaw had locked around the hip of the breech, and I concentrated, using extra-long fingers to free it, before stretching along the tiny hips to find the shoulder of the twin and guide it gently back.

  The tight pelvic stricture made maneuvering nearly impossible, so I focused, extending my arm farther, lengthening the muscles along the bone. As soon as I got the foal pushed far enough back, it slid into the uterus on its own. Just in time. The next contraction bore down on us, and the breech baby, freed from its twin, shot into the birth canal.

  I withdrew, pulling on the ropes, using pressure directed toward the mare’s hind hooves. When the tiny feet appeared under the tail, I released the ropes to grab the hind legs and added a slight twist when I felt the shoulders lock in the pelvic canal. With a rush that sent me flying onto my butt, the entire foal appeared.

  Louise was there before me, tearing the membranes away from the nose, scooping viscous fluid from the tiny nostrils. The foal was barely viable size, and it wasn’t breathing.

  “I’ve got this,” she said, massaging the rib cage. “Get the other one.” I paused, uncertain, but the husband picked the baby up by the hind legs and began to swing it to clear any mucus out of the airway.

  Confident they knew what they were doing, I nodded. My arm looked weird in the soft lighting of the foaling stall, but with everything going on, neither Louise nor her husband noticed. I kneeled again behind the mare and went fishing for the twin.

  He was there, and the contractions had realigned him. I pulled on one foreleg to stretch the elbow so it wouldn’t get hooked beneath the mare’s pelvis, which was all the time I had before Luna jet-propelled him into the birth canal. In seconds, I cradled the baby’s head in my lap, clearing the membranes. He sneezed and raised his head.

  I lowered him to the straw and glanced at Louise, expecting to see her holding a limp little body. Instead, the foal was stirring in the straw, long legs flexing in their first coordinated movement. Setting my foal aside, I went back in to check Luna. My fingers detected no tears, despite the difficult birth. While still in the mare, I focused and returned my arm to human.

  When I pulled it out, I rose and prepped a shot of hormone to help Luna clear the fetal membranes, and one of antibiotics to deal with any minor trauma I hadn’t noticed. By the time I’d given the shots, Louise had the first foal, a filly, lying on its chest, the small head wobbling. I rose to check both foals over.

  A few minutes of poking and prodding later, I shook my head. I met Louise’s anxious gaze. “They’re small, but fully developed. They seem quite strong despite their shaky start. Luna’s size meant she had the internal real estate for them to develop, and she’s got lots of milk. I can’t believe it, but you may have beat the odds on this one.”

  “Thanks to you.” She smiled, and now that the crisis was over, her eyes filled with tears.

  “You could still lose them. I would suggest supplemental feeding and watch that they nurse. They’ll be susceptible to nutrient deficiencies.”

  “Thank you, Doctor . . . ?”

  “Just Liam. We got lucky, incredibly lucky.” If I hadn’t been able to call on the wulf, I would never
have been able to reach far enough into the mare to do what I’d done. It had been a closer call than they would ever know.

  Luna snorted again, and I realized she smelled the wulf on my skin. She rose with a scramble of legs and swung around, ears flat against her skull, every maternal instinct on full alert.

  I gave her space, joining the husband outside the stall. He’d gathered my supplies into a pile and fetched a fresh bucket of warm water. Conscious of the sensitive wulfan nose waiting outside, I poured a generous helping of the smelly antiseptic solution into the water. As I washed up, the big mare placed her body squarely between her new babies and me and began to lick them. She seemed a little puzzled by the double whammy but showed no signs of rejecting either of them. Louise fussed over them as they made their first attempts to organize their stilts and rise to their feet.

  “If you need milk replacer, you can drop by the clinic for some,” I said, snapping my kit shut. “I’ll leave you another shot of the hormone, in case she doesn’t clean properly.”

  “We have some milk replacer in stock.” Louise spoke as she guided the smallest foal, the filly, over to the milk bar. I watched to see if the little one had a good suckle reflex and smiled when we all heard the distinctive noises and saw the tail wag.

  “I would get Elroy out when he gets back, just to check them over. If you need anything before then, give the clinic a call.”

  Louise extricated herself from the foals just long enough to give me a hug. Her husband escorted me out of the barn. Garrett leaned against the SUV, watching us. As I paused near him, he raised his head and sniffed.

  Nothing to smell here. Only a whole lot of antiseptic. His eyes narrowed, but I assumed it was impatience and had nothing to do with a whiff of wulf.

  The husband swayed from foot to foot and put out his hand for me to shake. “I can’t thank you enough. Luna was Louise’s dressage horse. They’re like sisters. Losing her would have been rough.”

  I nodded. “Fate smiled on us today. Glad I could help.”

  I watched him return to the barn and glanced at Garrett.